


Strong

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Banter, Cute, First Kiss, Kissing in the Rain, Laughter, M/M, Messy, POV Cole (Dragon Age), POV Cremisius "Krem" Aclassi, Rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-20 18:28:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21061211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: “But I want to go out in the rain,” Cole said. “Together. You and me.”“How come?” Krem asked.“I like how the rain feels. I like how you feel, too. I would like… both.”“Sure,” Krem assented.





	Strong

He needed to ask Varric.

He hovered in the doorway, watching Varric and the serving girl, Shani: _wish she’d let me tip her but I know she won’t, too proud, and what does she need me for, anyway? Wish she’d let them give her a different job, she could run this place with her eyes closed if she wasn’t so scared of attention—_

“Cole,” Varric said, looking away from Shani. “You gonna sleep on the couch?”

Cole had been sleeping, as of late. It was still new, after the whole thing in Redcliffe, but he slept more, now. Not as much as everyone else did, but he slept, sometimes, and sometimes he slept in Varric’s room, on his sofa, or if Varric was still up and working, in his bed.

“It’s going to rain,” he said. Varric looked at him expectantly, like he didn’t know what Cole meant, which was frustrating, but Varric did understand Cole better than some people did, mostly. “I want to sit in it,” he added. He had noticed, as of late, that this was something most people did not do. Most people ran inside, when it rained, and hid away from it, but why?

“Okay,” Varric said. “But remember to dry off before you lie down to sleep, okay? It’s important you don’t like down anywhere while you’re still wet. Go to Solas or Bull if they’re awake.” He thought about it, going to Solas, who would make the water steam off his skin and his clothes and leave him dry and warm, or the Iron Bull, who would towel him off, but he _liked_ the rain.

“I don’t mind it,” Cole said. “The wet weaves around me, the water wishing to make me a well.” And it did, too. It seeped right into him, down to his core, and it was cold, yes, but not in an unpleasant way.

Varric didn’t like that. “Yeah, but you’ll be cold,” Varric said. “You’ll shiver, and it’ll make you sick. You don’t want the flu, do you?” He could feel the worry come from him: _Cole, crying, cold, shivering in bed, coughing and choking, weak…_

“No,” Cole murmured, shaking his head. But that wasn’t what he was here for, it wasn’t _just_ to ask if it was okay if he sat in the rain, he wanted… “What about Krem?”

Varric stared at him for a second. “What about him?”

“Do you think he would like to get wet?”

He saw the look on Varric’s face. Couldn’t make out what it was he was thinking, because it didn’t hurt – Varric felt like he might almost laugh, but then he didn’t, and he was slow in saying, “Go ask him, kid, but… Don’t say it like that.” What was wrong with it? What was wrong with getting wet together? A sex thing? He supposed so, but it should have been obvious, shouldn’t it, that he meant the rain? “Ask if he wants to come sit in the rain with you. Maybe hold hands.”

“Oh,” Cole said softly, almost without meaning to, and he thought of Krem’s hands. They were good hands, strong hands, calloused, and he liked them, he liked them a lot. Blackwall got Cole to cut his fingernails, had taught him how, but Krem had shown him how to make them smooth and shiny, had sat down with the little buff and showed him how to make them pink and neatly curved, and it had been _wonderful_, feeling Krem’s hands holding Cole’s hands, how warm they were, how muscular… “He has _very_ nice hands.”

“Yeah,” Varric murmured, his lips shifting into a small smile. “You tell him that.”

Cole realized, after he had walked all the way down the corridor and started crossing toward the Herald’s Rest, that he had forgotten to say goodbye. He did that, sometimes, but he was trying to get better at it. There were lots of things he was trying to get better at, like listening, when his body said things. His body said a lot of things, said them all the time – that it wanted to sleep, or eat, or pass water, or _drink_ water, or _touch_.

It was a lot to keep track of, but he was trying his best.

\--

Cole didn’t really announce himself, when he showed up with Krem.

He would just appear, and usually Krem wouldn’t jump, because he was used to the guys trying to scare the shit out of him, but with Cole, it wasn’t meant to scare him. He was just getting used to being in the real, human body, letting people remember him, letting the world take an effect on him.

“Hey, Cole,” Krem said.

“Varric says I shouldn’t ask you to get wet,” Cole said. “I think because you could misinterpret it as something to do with sex.”

Krem took this in. “Okay,” he said, tone even. “I see that.”

“But I want to go out in the rain,” Cole said. “Together. You and me.”

Under the brim of his hat, Cole looked _little_, like a flower stalk made small by the weight of its petals, and he looked at Krem eagerly, concentratedly. He often looked at Krem like that. Krem was kind of used to it, from girls, because he was handsome, he knew that, but Cole did it differently. It wasn’t that it wasn’t sexual – no matter that he didn’t really get the whole thing with Candy, he didn’t think Cole hated the idea of sex – but it was like he was trying to focus on whatever was underneath, rather than his face itself.

“How come?” Krem asked.

“I like how the rain feels. I like how you feel, too. I would like… both.”

“Sure,” Krem assented.

_I like how you feel_. Krem felt a kind of fluttering in his chest, getting to his feet, and he patted Grim on the shoulder as he passed him by, letting Cole take hold of his hand. Cole was a little bit cold, but not unbearably so – Krem had noticed it when he’d been showing him how to manicure his fingers, before.

That had been… nice. Having Cole in front of him, eagerly leaning into his touch. He liked Cole.

Cole was—

He didn’t want to say _pure_. Cole wasn’t pure, not really. He wasn’t unsexed, or stupid, or ignorant – he was just _different_, hugely different, and the way he saw the world compared to Krem, compared to anyone, was so foreign, so far removed, and it was spellbinding, sometimes, to hear Cole’s take on a situation, or description of something.

The rain was coming down hard.

Krem laughed as Cole pulled him out underneath it, glancing down at his feet to make sure the other man was wearing shoes, and then he leaned close, putting their chests together.

_“Yesss_,” Cole said, emphasising the sibilant sound, and he threw his arms around Krem’s neck, leaning in toward him. Cole was a bit shorter than Krem was, and Krem had to lean underneath the brim of his hat to keep him bending it, and Cole sighed delightedly. “You’re so _big_.”

“No, I’m not,” Krem murmured, laughing, and he put his hands on Cole’s hips, squeezing.

“You are! You’re _strong_!” Cole said earnestly. “Your muscles…” He slid his fingers over Krem’s shoulders, to the tops of his arms, squeezing, and there was a look of such delighted wonder in his eyes that Krem felt himself flush slightly, his cheeks burning.

“You want to see how strong I am?” Krem asked softly. The water was soaking into Cole’s blouse, wetting the fabric and making it stick against his skin, and but it mostly ran off the leather of Krem’s vest, soaking a little into his shirt sleeves, and that was all.

“Yes, please,” Cole said, and Krem grabbed him under his thighs. Cole let out a delighted cry, throwing his arms around Krem’s neck again, and he wrapped his legs around Krem’s waist, hooking them around him and squeezing his knees against his hip bones, surging to press their noses together.

His hat fell off, but Krem just stepped over it, his boots squelching in the wet grass, and Cole’s nose was _freezing_ against his own, but he was laughing so brightly, it was a wonderful sound.

Krem spun a little on his feet, spreading his hands on Cole’s back, and Cole ran one hand up over Krem’s hair, breathing a little more heavily.

He wondered, what it would be like, to kiss him, to feel Cole’s mouth under his own, to—

“You can,” Cole said breathlessly. “Please.”

Krem leaned up, and Cole’s mouth brushed against his, eager, a little messy, and Krem kissed him back, leaning one way as he tried to adjust his grip on Cole’s thighs. He was heavy, but not as heavy as he looked, and—

“On the floor,” Cole said.

“It’s muddy,” Krem replied.

“Please?”

Krem dropped.

He fell onto his back, Cole on top of him as the rain poured around them, and Cole laughed, his fingers running through Krem’s hair, his knees either side of Krem’s waist, and he kissed Krem’s mouth again, more chastely, this time.

“It’s better like that,” he said.

“Yeah?” Krem asked. “You don’t like tongue?”

“I think?”

“Let me try,” Krem said, and kissed him again, more controlled this time, slower, cupping his cheek. Cole hummed into it, and then he pulled back, looking thoughtful. “Still better with no tongue?”

“Yes,” Cole said. “But that one was better than mine.”

“Okay,” Krem murmured, laughing. “I’m covered in mud.”

“Yes,” Cole said intently. “We’ll have to have a bath.”

“We?” Krem asked. “No, I don’t think so.”

Cole’s face fell. “But—”

Krem grabbed him by the sides of his chest and rolled them over, delighting in the way Cole squealed and slapped at him as he was thrown on his back in the mud.

“Get _inside_, both of you,” Solas called from the stairs as he went into the main hall. “If you catch the flu, Cole, I shan’t nurse you to health!”

“He’s lying,” Cole said softly, smiling down at Krem, shyly, sweetly. “He would.”

“Yeah,” Krem said. “Solas loves you, Varric too. And the Chief. Guess everybody does.”

“They all like you, too,” Cole said, cupping Krem’s cheeks. He was colder, now, and it was time to go inside, even as the rain pounded around their heads.

“You sure?” Krem asked, arching an eyebrow. “I never got the impression Solas liked me much.”

“If he didn’t,” Cole said, “he would have asked me to go inside, with him. He left us out here. He thinks you’ll take care of me.”

Krem’s heart beat a little faster. “Oh?”

“Yes,” Cole said. His teeth chattered, and Krem chuckled, pushing him up onto his feet, and he picked Cole up again, under his back and the back of his knees, carrying him bridal style, Cole's hat in his hands. There were hot springs that put the water in the baths, so at least it’d be hot instead of cold when they went down to them.

“See?” Cole asked. “Strong.”

“Well, I gotta take care of you,” Krem murmured. “Can’t let the egg man down.”

“Egg man,” Cole repeated. “Does Solas eat eggs?”

“Hey, Cole.”

“Yeah?”

“Let me kiss you again.”

Cole kissed the side of his mouth, and then again, and again…

“Your cheeks are hot,” Cole said.

“I’m blushing.”

“I like it.”

“Yeah,” Krem murmured. “Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Feel free to hit up [my ask on Tumblr,](http://patricianandclerk.tumblr.com/ask) to talk about DA in general, and definitely to recommend blogs to follow! I am open for requests (for Origins, II, and Inq). I also run a no-drama Dragon Age Discord, which [you can join here.](https://discordapp.com/invite/ttgP5v8) Please comment if you can!


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